2018 : a recap

I am going to try to wrap up 2018. That was what I said to myself when I decided to sum up my year in a Tweet. that was a big fail. It turned into a blog post instead.

1. I almost got nuked in Hawaii during my ONE vacation of the year

I was in Honolulu when they announced that a missile was headed for us. I know what I do in case of imminent death: eat raw fish?! Let me explain, I got stuck in Costco with my Jewish mom and my husband during the alert. My mother was not going to leave her weekly grocery shopping so we basically grocery shopped and drove through the alert. That’s right. I decided to go with my gut, put up with my mother and drive down the highway with my husband in the backseat. But just in case we really were going to die, I decided that I would eat the delicious, fresh poke we had bought. So here’s to almost getting nuked and eating raw fish with family.

2. I got a dog and we traveled through Europe as digital nomads

I got a 🐕 and we ✈️to 🇪🇸 & 🇮🇹 & 🇦🇹 & 🇭🇺 &🇨🇭. It was awesome.

Meet Mocsing (Momo Bonaparte Doug the Dog as her dad calls her). She accidentally went into the Pantheon in Rome. Well, she is tiny and she travels in a hipster dog bag…so they probably thought she was a high tech gizmo of some sort. Also, they didn’t have the “no dogs allowed” sign visible at the entrance. We noticed it inside of the Pantheon. Either way, I’m sorry. Husband and dog don’t care though.

3. I went to visit Google Zurich and all I got was a high quality T-shirt because the Swiss don’t skimp on quality

Seriously, don’t even try Swiss people. They know quality. That Google Dance Zurich T-shirt has seen some things since then and it always looks good. I left mine in Budapest (where I keep my souvenirs) and we took my husband’s back with us to Montréal. Everyone here keeps thinking it’s some type of super exclusive event being promoted…and then we have to let them know about Squid Hats, delicious cocktails and some pretty fun nerd moments. Bottom line was, once, I got invited to speak at Google simply because I made friends with the right person over my lack of pants this one time…

4. Neon orange hair, just don’t care

I finally went with someone a bit insane : neon orange. When you are pale/translucent and you happen to be over 30 years old…neon orange anything is usually not a good choice. Turns out it weirdly worked for me and I don’t regret making an insanely bold choice (or a boldly insane choice, I haven’t figured out which is which).

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Dec 10, 2018 at 2:38pm PST

8AM, I have been up for an hour and want to surprise my husband with a lemon pie for breakfast. We now have both been working from home for a month and I want to celebrate the little freedoms.

I go to the store, pay for my pie with my phone. I put the phone down on the counter, put my headphones back on and start loading the pie up on my forearm to carry it home. Nothing left on the counter? Cool. Ready, set, go home! Except that on my way out, about three Rihanna yodels later, radio silence.

My phone was missing from my pocket. I looked for it in the street naively thinking it fell out of my pocket. Don’t laugh! I live in Canada, people return phones, don’t cut in line and apologize to others. I went looking for the phone in the supermarket as well. Then, giving up, I headed home…with anger in my heart and a pie on my arm. Except that my headphones connected to my phone once again! I turned Rihanna back on.

Somebody turned Riri off.

There! My phone was in someone’s hands. And they really didn’t like Rihanna. They kept turning her off…until my headphones lost connection again. I spent 20 minutes chasing the phone up and down the avenue until there was no more Rihanna left.

Went home, told my husband someone stole my phone.

He said I left it home.

It made me angry.😠

He said I always forget my stuff at home and that no one stole it.

The my headphone reconnected. 😮

My husband said it was proof that I left it home.

It made me shriek from anger like a banshee. 👹

So, we both locate the phone and notice that the phone is indeed near our home. It’s moving fast. Too fast for a walking human but too slow for a car. I give chase with our other phone, getting updates sent to me by the second by the marital unit staying home.

There, the GPS was locating my phone so close to our house…

And it turned out to be in the hands of a man in a motorized wheelchair. I turned Rihanna back on to make sure (the headphones had connected again). The man angrily lifted a claw-like hand to the phone and threw a shaking punch at the screen to stop the music. Ad now, for a bit of inner monologue:

A hobo-looking handicapped person stole my phone. OMFG, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

OK, I am getting my phone back. Do I ask for it back? Is he going to roll away with it?

I’m stealing it back. Fuck it, I’m stealing it back.

He can outroll me so I must grab my phone back quickly.

*inner war cry commences*

So, by the time I reached the man, I had resolved to steal my phone back out of his disabled hands. I felt awful but damn it, I was justified! Right? Either way, my emotions were too late for that debate as my body had already gone ahead and grabbed the darn thing. I was now left babbling some bland excuse that turned out to be a bit insane when I think about it.

Thank you for staying put and letting me locate my phone back sir!

Not my brightest moment…

6. I bought a fast food onesie for a pun

I’m a 🌭 and my dog is a 🔥🐕. I showed of my haute dog fashion off at Dachfest. Why Dachfest? Well because it’s a conference located in Germany and many sausage puns were had. Check out some of the wurst fashion out there 👇

7. Freelancing for real

Husband joined me this year. We now work together. The dog watches us.

No one was killed or harmed during the making of that company.

Dog may have licked a client though.

8. We got hate sued

This year, we almost lost the cozy little home we have made for ourselves. After a few months as brand new home owners, we got served with a legal document. We learned that a hold had been placed on our building because our neighbor tried to *not* give a 50,000$ check to its rightful neighbor. Now, since we bought in a housing arrangement that entails 3 condos. We don’t own a condo though, we own 33% of a building. You see the nuance there? If someone were to sue a neighbor, they have to sue the entire building in order to put a legal hold on their property.

Fun stuff. To punish the neighbor’s thieving attempt, the company sued the entire building. They had no legal right to do so in this specific case. Except that we soon learned: it doesn’t matter if something is legally sound if you hate someone enough you can still sue them if you try. So we were going to be sued just for shits and giggles. That’s a corporate fuck you if I’ve ever seen one. Except that usually, you don’t expect a company to use malicious compliance to get back at a lady.

9. I wore LED eyelashes and they got me into the Berghain.

I wore LED eyelashes and it was amazing. They were given to me by @stephaniecodes for my birthday! I wore those things in the street in Amsterdam, in Zurich and they got into the Berghain with them things on. It was amazing but at the same time, every single person tripping in that club was hypnotized by me. I had a lot of best friends that night.

10. I had a lot of bad luck

I broke up with AirBnB after this shitty thing

We had post-it notes everywhere:

in the bathroom

in the shower itself

in the kitchen

in the fridge itself

on plates

in cupboards

The whole thing was bonkers.

It's Sunday, do you want a saga to follow along to? I have an excellent one. It's called, find the post it notes in the AirBNB.

A close friend of mine disappeared under the ice in Amsterdam

Basically, we all were apprehensive about crossing the frozen canals in the city.

Living in Canada, I *knew* this was bad news. I made across safely, turned around to warn my friend that the ice was cracking just in time to see her disappear under the ice. Thankfully her partner is a bit of an athlete (he is so fit his abs have abs) and he pulled her out superhero style.

Also, I know exactly how this picture was taken. We got to see a few drop dead gorgeous girls show up with loyal boyfriends. Each one had a bikini only a woman with a flawless body could pull off. Each one had the boyfriend take a picture of their butt half in the water. Trust me, that shit gets *awkward*.

So between a manager trying to say that we signed our rights away by buying bath tickets, Koreans crawling all over the place with cameras and beautiful girls with hovering butts and boyfriends…I am still worried someone will see my pudgy body on Korean TV.